I need to write more on WOHPs - what does a good WOHP look like?

This blog is starting to become the diary I've always wanted to keep, but never felt motivated enough to maintain. I love the perspective I get from the comments - not just support, but also subtle questioning about my thinking. Hence three entries today - I'm going through a shift in thought, and documenting it in my diary.

This post is my thoughts about how giving up on responsibility at home has a flip side - I need to start living up to and thinking about my responsibilities at work. Until this point, I've been stressed about home and family. It's more important to me, and what I really care about, so it's what I've been writing about. Home is still important to me, but I've made a decision to conciously spend less time on caring about it. A SAHP is someone you can trust with the things that are most important to you in the whole world, and that is what I am trying to do. I've given myself permission to be disappointed with my husband, and that seems to be important. But while I was focusing too much on things that aren't my job, my actual job has slipped badly. I need to spend some time being disappointed with myself :-) And think about how I can be supportive and encouraging for myself, too.

If this blog is going to be my diary, it's a great place to get myself back on track. A diary doesn't have to just reflect my state of mind - I can use my diary as a tool to actually change my state of mind. Right now, I want to be thinking more about work. When I think about home, I want to be thinking about how I can appreciate and support my spouse and love my children, not about how to fix problems. Why is fixing the operation of our home my responsibility? It's not.

When I think about work, I should be investing the same kind of passion and active involvement that I was putting into my home life. True, I care less about work than about home. Nonetheless, it's my job and it is important. The fact that my work is less important than caring for children and preparing them for the world is no excuse not to do my best. My job is a critical part of my husband's work, giving him the resources he needs to feed, clothe, and care for my children so he can focus on teaching them how to live and on making a home out of our house. So expect more posts on my efforts to be a better employee as a WOHM who can (hopefully) rely on a SAHD, and fewer posts about how to get a reverse-traditional home to function.

While writing this, I had an interesting twist in my thought direction. Because of my desire to encourage and motivate DH, I've been thinking a lot about how important SAHPs are, and how difficult their jobs really are. I need to look at the other side for a bit, now. I want to keep talking about how cool the things DH does are, but I also want to start looking at the WOHP role in our home and in general, and I want to get a better understanding of it. I hear so much about WOHPs who treat their spouses like slaves and never do anything to help out, who are condescending and unfair. But what does a good WOHP look like? What do they do - and what do they not need to worry about, because they are entrusting it to the SAHP?

While writing this, it just hit me that I have very few models for this. I've never really lived in a home with a WOHP (Work Outside the Home Parent) who relied on a SAHP. No wonder I've been getting overinvolved. I really wonder what SAHPs expect from WOHPs. I don't want to be a female version of that wretched, crude, unappreciative WOHD figure at one extreme, but I also don't want to be living like a single mom - trying to "do it all" - either. Yes, I've asked DH for his take on what I should be doing and shouldn't be doing - but he doesn't have a good answer, and I suspect he doesn't really know either. He has said that he doesn't think I should be responsible for any of the work around the house, but I really don't think he should be expecting to do it all without help.

Hrm . . . maybe I should ask for a little help from those who read this blog? In your family, what are the responsibilities of the WOHP? What do you think WOHPs, in general, need to do better? What does a great WOHP look like? Feel free to use WOHD or SAHM (the normal gendered Dad / Mom versions of WOHP, SAHP) or whatever terms work for you - I'm not hung up on being PC.